


beat that moment down

by fliptomybside



Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, Harry Styles (Musician)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-07-06 22:17:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15895224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fliptomybside/pseuds/fliptomybside
Summary: nick doesn't read the sun and harry doesn't turn up on his doorstep.





	beat that moment down

**Author's Note:**

> uhhh this didn't turn out the way i thought it would but? ?? i've been in my gryles feelings lately, so. unbeta-ed so all mistakes are mine, title from manchester orchestra - the gold, please don't let the real people that this is about see it, etc. etc.

Harry doesn’t show up on his doorstep. Nick doesn’t read The Sun and Harry doesn’t show up on his doorstep. Nick doesn’t even want him to. He does, however, show up at Nick’s out of the blue a few days later and drags him out to brunch.

“It’s been ages,” he says, “Gemma recommended this new place to me, I’ve been wanting to try it and I figured you’d be willing to join.”

“This place was new six months ago, maybe.”

Harry rolls his eyes. 

“Six months isn’t new anymore?”

“They do an all right eggs benedict,” Nick says grudgingly, because Harry’s looking at him and he’s dressed in all white, jesus, and it should look—does look—ridiculous, but he’s still Harry and Nick can appreciate a fashion risk. And a decent brunch spot.

“Okay then,” Harry says, grinning at him and taking off his equally ridiculous hat to run a hand through his hair. 

It looks like it could use a wash, and it makes Nick self-conscious of his own bedhead.

“Gonna take a shower first. Make myself presentable.”

Harry groans.

“Fifteen minutes, that’s my limit. C’mon, Nick, it’s brunch, not the Brits.”

Nick doesn’t deign to give that a response, just leaves Harry in his kitchen looking as posh as he ever has, questionably clean hair and all.

He makes it back out in seventeen minutes, give or take. Harry’s still perched on one of the stools Nick thought he had to have but never actually uses, scrolling through his phone. 

“Ready?”

Harry takes his time standing up, possibly to punish Nick, but Nick’d be just as happy crawling back into bed, so he isn’t as bothered as Harry probably wants him to be. 

“Let’s walk,” Harry says, not totally able to hide his smirk when he gets up. 

Nick suppresses a groan because his body’s already forgotten that he used to jog to work at 5:30 in the morning.

-

The eggs benedict isn’t better than he remembered.

“Wish I’d ordered pancakes.”

“Can have some of mine if you want,” Harry says, “don’t think my body’s used to this many carbohydrates, to be honest.”

Nick resists an eye roll but doesn’t stop himself from spearing a piece of Harry’s blueberry pancakes with his fork. 

“My body gets weird if I don’t give it enough carbs.”

He watches Harry’s face closely. Searches for the signs of sadness that Nick’s seen before, but he mostly looks tired. He smiles, catching Nick’s eye with a dimple pressing into his cheek and Nick’s stomach flips predictably. 

“You all right?” Nick asks before he can stop himself. 

Harry sighs almost imperceptibly and pops another piece of pancake in his mouth, tugging his plate back toward him. 

“I’m okay,” he says after a long minute and a sip of coffee. 

Nick’s not quite sure what to say next, because he hadn’t meant to ask in the first place. He swings his foot around under the table a bit until he makes contact with Harry’s shin. 

“Is this supposed to be you comforting me?”

Nick laughs, only a little hysterically, because what does it say about him that his default response is physical, and not the comforting kind of physical?

“Me coming out to brunch with you before noon is supposed to give your soul a facelift,” Nick says, and Harry snorts and covers his face with his hands. 

They walk it off after, until Harry complains that he needs a sit down and it feels like Nick’s just gone back in time five years, stretching out on the grass and Harry next to him, kicking at his shins. 

“You taking some time to rest up?”

Harry’s mouth pinches but his face is otherwise impenetrable thanks to his sunglasses. Nick stares at his shoes when the silence drags out more than is strictly comfortable. 

“Kind of,” he says, his voice slower than ever. 

Nick bites his tongue and waits. He’s sweating already and is definitely going to need a second shower when he gets home. 

“It’s like,” Harry starts, then pauses to clear his throat, “hard to slow down, at the beginning. Like, my brain’s still going and my body’s just trying to keep up.”

Nick huffs out a laugh and squints against the sun.

“Probably the most relatable thing you’ve ever said, popstar.”

Harry flips him off and grins and Nick’s stomach lurches. 

-

It doesn’t really feel like Nick thought it would feel. At least, it doesn’t feel like it did when he started, his stomach doing uncomfortable backflips and his tongue feeling too big for his mouth and his brain still dead asleep. 

It doesn’t feel like his last night show, either. More like he’s just run for a long time and now he finally gets to sit down and he can’t make it to the shower so he just flops down on the floor of his bedroom and naps for three weeks, sweaty clothes and all.

Not his best metaphor, maybe, but it’s more of a whimper than a bang and Nick’s never been the best at quiet things. 

-

‘Offended that you didn’t invite me on holiday,’ Harry texts him later. Nick’s at Pixie’s, flat on his stomach on her and George’s bed. 

Nick closes his eyes for a second and buries his face in a pillow that’s more ornate than it is comfortable.

“Did you tell Harry about Mallorca?”

“What?”

Nick looks up long enough to wave his phone in her direction so she’ll take it and then shuts his eyes again.

“Guess I just thought it’d be nice? It’s Harry, Grim, he’s harmless. Don’t know why you didn’t invite him in the first place.”

Nick groans.

“Don’t drool on my pillow,” she says, dropping his phone back on the bed. 

“I should,” he says into the pillow, but rolls off of it after a minute, “it’s what you deserve, really.”

“You’re being melodramatic. And you’re replacing that pillow if you do drool on it.”

“I guess I assumed he had plans. He generally does. Busy man.”

The mattress bounces when Pixie flops down next to him. Nick wrinkles his nose at the patchouli in her perfume.

“Well,” she says, patting Nick’s ass, “now he does. With us. Like old times.”

Old times, when Nick played fast and loose with his relationship with Harry, when he toed the invisible line between them and told himself it’d be okay if he stepped over it. He didn’t step over it, though. He let Harry sleep in his bed and pester him every night on radio but he let all of his friends do that, not just Harry. 

“‘M too old for old times, love,” he says, but Pixie just giggles.

-

‘Don’t bring the yellow ones,’ Nick types out with one thumb, trying desperately to remember what he’d been about to put in his suitcase. 

He watches the dots appear and lets everything else slide out of focus. The nerves in his stomach at going on holiday with Harry like they’ve slid back five years. The fluorescent swim suit at the top of the pile he definitely isn’t going to be able to close his suitcase around. The way he’s now over the hill in the sense that he’s gotten and left his dream job. 

‘Only because it’s your birthday,’ Harry’s text reads.

He starts typing again and then stops. Nick waits for the dots to reappear but they don’t, and eventually his phone goes dim and then dark. 

-

“34 and still a nudist,” Pixie giggles and Nick’s past caring at this point, just sinks deeper into his bath, the warm water enough to set him off sweating again.

“It’s my birthday,” he says, eyes closed, “is that not why they call it a birthday suit? Like, what else should I be wearing?”

He opens his eyes in time to catch Alexa smirking at him in the mirror, her fingers tangling in her hair as she blows it dry. He watches as Harry slouches in and leans against the sink, his hair greasy and clipped up off his forehead.

“Got any room for me?”

Nick blinks at him. Harry stares back, the hint of a smile tugging at his mouth. 

“It’s my birthday, Harold, I don’t have to share.”

He watches Harry’s smile curl into a smirk and then glances over at Pixie. She’s engrossed in her phone and Nick thinks she’s probably recording all of this for the sole purpose of torturing him with it later. 

Harry’s still looking at him when Nick drags his eyes away from Pixie, his mouth tugging down at the corners, and Nick feels caught out, even though Harry’s the one staring at him. He closes his eyes and tries to focus on the beads of sweat on his forehead instead of Harry’s eyes on him. He tries not to think about how familiar this feels, the head rush when Harry’s in his orbit and they’re circling each other, waiting for something to snap, maybe. Or maybe not, maybe it’s always been in Nick’s head, maybe Harry doesn’t feel like he’s going to pass out from adrenaline whenever he mentions Nick on Twitter. He probably doesn’t, especially now that he hardly uses it, and Nick bites the inside of his mouth until it bleeds and listens to the drone of Alexa’s hair dryer. 

-

“Happy birthday,” Harry slurs, his breath hot against Nick’s ear. 

He’s a deadweight at Nick’s side, his skin warm and sticky to the touch and Nick feels lightheaded from Harry and alcohol and the heat.

“Feels like,” he says, swaying into Harry, “we’re in someone’s mouth, doesn’t it?”

Harry laughs in his ear, too close and too loud, but Nick doesn’t care.

-

 

Harry’s skin smells like chlorine, thick and overpowering, and it should be off putting. Nick should step back, he should shove him in the direction of the shower. He should put enough distance between them so that when Harry comes back, Nick can pretend to be asleep and it’ll be halfway convincing.

He doesn’t. Because it’s his birthday and he’s thirty four. Because it’s Harry, sunburned skin and slightly too big nose and fruity cocktail on his breath. Because he’s waited for this, hasn’t he, wanted it even when he told himself he didn’t, even when he and Harry went a month, two months, without speaking and Nick slept his way through all the models in London.

Harry doesn’t say anything. Nick watches him blink, his face too close to be anything other than a vaguely Harry shaped blur. His nose brushes Nick’s and his breath hits Nick’s lip and Nick’s body sways forward but he’s not—he can’t be the first. He can’t throw everything off balance that way, he thinks, every nerve in his body jumping under his skin.

It’s odd when Harry does kiss him. Not like, bad odd, but like Nick’s thought about it so many times that it’s lost all meaning, like when he says the same word too many times in a row and it starts to sound like gibberish. He tastes like tequila and passionfruit and Nick licks into his mouth, lets himself lean into the heat of Harry’s body and the familiar feeling of Harry’s hands on him, just never quite like this. 

The part of Nick’s brain that’s still functioning is glad that they don’t have much clothing on, because he feels more drunk than he is, his limbs heavy and and hands clumsy when he slips his fingers under the waistband of Harry’s shorts. 

“White?” he says into Harry’s mouth, “really?”

Harry huffs the ghost of a laugh against Nick’s lips and slides a hand around the back of Nick’s neck before he answers, stepping closer so Nick can feel his cock through the fabric.

“You told me no yellow,” he says, and bites down on Nick’s lower lip for emphasis.

Nick doesn’t know what to say to that, because he did say no yellow, and he is grateful for the white, really, and the way it makes Harry look more tan and less sunburned than Nick knows he is. He doesn’t know what to say and Harry’s walking them until the backs of Nick’s knees hit the edge of the mattress and then they’re falling, the weight of Harry’s body on top of his knocking the wind out of him for a second. 

Harry stares at him and Nick stares back. He’s practically got Harry’s face memorized at this point, but that doesn’t mean he likes looking at it any less. His nose is probably going to start to peel in a few days and Nick knows he’ll still find it attractive, because life and Harry’s face are unfair like that.

Nick lets his lips part and Harry kisses him like he’s desperate even if Nick can’t conjure up a universe in which he thinks that’s possible. Harry’s hips twitch against his and their knees knock together and they’re sweaty and sticky but it’s still better than Nick could’ve imaged, because he never would’ve imagined it like this. 

Harry starts up a rhythm, jerky and disjointed, their skin tacky and sticking together and the friction dragging their shorts down and then back up, a slow, awkward tease of what they could have. When Harry kisses his way down Nick’s neck, Nick tugs at the waistband of his shorts. 

“Harold,” he says, staring up at the ceiling and wondering how they got here, “I’ll forgive the white if you take them off.”

Harry stops moving and Nick bites his lip to stop himself from whining. 

“Guess I don’t have a choice then, do I?”

Nick can’t make himself look at Harry but he can hear the smirk in Harry’s voice and he slips his hands down so he’s cupping Harry’s ass and digs his fingers into Harry’s sweaty skin. 

“God,” Harry groans, “Nick, okay. Okay.”

Nick’s heard Harry’s voice in a million different contexts. In front of their friends, with Eileen, when he’s been in love with someone who loves him back, when he’s been in love with someone who hasn’t, but this is different. It’s rough and deep and Nick’s never heard Harry’s voice when he’s about to have sex with someone, but now he has. Now he has and he’s the one who’s about to have sex with Harry.

Harry rolls off of him and drags his hand across Nick’s stomach as he goes, groaning as he palms himself through his shorts with his other hand. 

“Thought about this a bit,” Harry says, turning his head so he can stare Nick down, slipping his hand into his shorts as he does.

“Have you?”

Nick means for it to sound light but it catches in his throat and it hangs between them, Harry still looking at him unblinking and his hand moving steadily. 

“Yeah,” he says, voice lower than Nick’s ever heard it, “I have.”

Nick’s eyes start to burn but he doesn’t want to blink, doesn’t want to risk missing any of this, the pale skin beneath Harry’s shorts and the curve of his cock, slick at the tip and not—not small. Which Nick knew, but now he knows and it makes all the difference, his own cock twitching.

“Your turn. C’mon, I know you’re not shy.”

Nick rolls his eyes but lifts his hips up off the bed so he can tug his shorts off, dragging the elastic waist down his cock and huffing out a sigh as he does. 

Harry shuffles closer once he tosses them onto the floor, swings a leg over Nick’s hips and settles in Nick’s lap, Nick’s cock sliding between his cheeks, so close to where Nick wants it but not close enough. 

“Mm,” Harry hums, rocking back against the slick of Nick’s cock, “this is nice.”

Nick snorts. 

“Don’t laugh, you’ll ruin the moment,” Harry says, lifting himself enough that Nick’s cock catches on his rim and Nick groans.

“There’s a moment to ruin?” Nick asks, because he can’t stop himself from trying to sabotage even now, with a lapful of Harry.

“Nick,” Harry whines, tugging Nick’s hands up to cup the curve of his ass, his skin warm and tacky, before he rolls off again and stretches out on his stomach this time. 

Nick moves on autopilot. It feels like he’s underwater, like he’s trying to speed up, to get his hands on Harry as fast as he can, but everything’s heavy and slower in reality than it is in his head. 

“Got lube in my bag,” Harry says, his voice muffled by the mattress. 

Nick flushes and leans forward to press a kiss into the base of Harry’s spine before he gets up, rummages through a pile of vintage t-shirts in Harry’s suitcase to find the lube and a condom at the bottom. It’s new. Unopened, and it makes Nick stomach flip. Something to parse through later, he tells himself, climbing back into bed and coating his fingers.

He’s glad Harry’s on his stomach. Glad that all he can look at is the swath of Harry’s back, sunburned and tattoo-free because Harry’s face would be too much. Nick’s not sure if he’s ready for that, and he knows he doesn’t want Harry to see his face.

Everything feels slow. The movement of his fingers and Harry’s breathing, his back rising and falling steadily, and the way Harry opens for his fingers, slick and hot. 

“‘M good,” Harry says after an indeterminate amount of time, his voice rough and his hips starting to shift against the mattress.

It takes a second for the words to penetrate Nick’s brain, and then he’s fumbling with the condom, cursing under his breath because his fingers are lube slick and it’s almost impossible to open. Harry’s looking at him over his shoulder when Nick finally gets it on and looks up. 

“You okay?”

Nick feels like maybe he’s the one who should be asking Harry that, like he’s the older, more responsible, more experienced one in this scenario even though he knows only one of those things is actually true. 

“Yeah,” he says, sliding a hand over the curve of Harry’s ass, “you? Ready?”

Harry licks his lips and rolls over, pulls his knees up and looks at Nick as he touches himself, one hand wrapped around the base of his cock and the other tracing where Nick’s opened him up and left him slick.

Nick’s stomach clenches and he palms his own cock, tries not to let the nerves bubble up in his stomach. He half wants to tell Harry to roll back over, wants to say I’m going to make an embarrassing mess of myself and I don’t really want you to see it, but he can’t figure out how to say it without just saying it, so he doesn’t.

He leans forward instead, crawls between Harry’s legs and kisses him, reaches down to knock Harry’s hand aside and replace them with his cock. 

Harry’s eyes are squeezed shut and his cheeks are flushed and he bites his bottom lip so hard it goes white when Nick pushes in, gritting his teeth against how good it feels. He holds still once he’s seated deep. Harry’s still motionless beneath him, his cock hard and curved up to his stomach, and Nick can’t stop thinking about the fact that he did that. He made Harry hard, and it’s not like Harry’s 18 anymore and gets hard when the wind blows in the right direction. The thought is enough to make him groan, and it’s embarrassing. Nick doesn’t remember the last time he felt embarrassed during sex, but a slow grin curls across Harry’s mouth and he opens his eyes and digs his heels into the small of Nick’s back.

“I know,” Harry says, tongue wetting his lower lip where it’s bloomed red and opening his eyes to blink up at Nick, “I know, c’mon, waited a long time for this.”

He reaches for his cock and Nick watches for a minute. The slick slide of Harry’s hand and the way he thumbs the head and then Nick covers Harry’s hand with his own before he starts moving, slow and deep. Harry pulls him in, lets go of his cock and pulls Nick down to kiss him, even though Nick can barely do more than pant into Harry’s mouth. Harry clenches around him and Nick’s rhythm falters and he can feel Harry smile against his mouth. 

“C’mon,” he says, “want to feel you come. Want to make you come.”

Nick feels his cheeks heat up even though he’s been known to engage in dirty talk during sex in his time, if you could even call Harry’s words that. This feels different, though. Familiar and alien somehow, like his brain hasn’t quite caught up with the evening’s turn of events. 

Harry’s cock drags along his stomach, slick and hot against Nick’s skin.

“Come for me,” he says, and Harry’s eyes flutter shut when Nick pushes back in, hard enough that it jolts Harry further up the bed. 

Harry’s hand finds its way back to his cock and Nick can feel Harry’s knuckles brush his stomach on every upstroke, faster and faster, falling into rhythm with Nick until he comes, a whine escaping his mouth that doesn’t sound like anything Nick’s imagined it would. It’s easy, after that, Nick’s body teetering on the edge and sweat beading on his forehead, Harry clenching around him again when he comes, dropping his head to Harry’s shoulder and breathing in the smell of chlorine and skin. 

-

Nick can't remember falling asleep, but he must've, because he's plastered against Harry's back and all he can hear is Harry's breathing. 

Their skin is sticky and Nick's still got the condom on and half of him wants to run, to take a shower and then sneak into Pixie and George's room or maybe get on a plane home, somehow. 

He breathes in deep and exhales slowly, lets his chin hook over Harry's shoulder. Harry hums and wiggles back against him.

"Can hear you thinking," Harry says, low and rough, "don't do that."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [here](http://polaroidgirlfriend.tumblr.com) on tumblr.


End file.
